(urth) The Tomb of the Unknown Severian

Chris rasputin_ at hotmail.com
Sun Dec 23 12:12:01 PST 2007


I am still working out how this fits with the theory currently being discussed, but with regard to Sev1 and Sev2 I always took that as Severian being a bit myopic in his thinking; my conjecture was that it's not solely or simply Severian that is being "revised", he is simply a focal point in the revision of the entire timeline (including our own history). And we in turn are manipulating Yesod's timeline/history - but because our own is being manipulated by them, we do it slightly differently each time (and they in turn manipulate us slightly differently). It's paradoxical, but then again we're dealing with timewalking and you're going to get a paradox no matter what. But on this view one thing you don't have to worry about is Sev1 and Sev2 actually meeting each other - though you will get Sev1 meeting Sev1 and Sev2 meeting Sev2. Another consequence is that it becomes unproblematic to think that Sev1 actually succeeded. Severian himself thinks this is problematic, because he situates two Severians in the same timeline - and if Sev1 succeeded why would there need to be a Sev2?

Another odd possibility is that, all things considered, the differences between how Sev1 got to where he was going and how Sev2 got there may in fact be trivial, nearly meaningless - just the byproduct of the timelines themselves being slightly different, and with possible intervention to make everything work out OK with Severian's life given those changes. 

-- 
"When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." -- Lin Yutang

> Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 19:45:47 +0000
> From: tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com
> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> Subject: (urth) The Tomb of the Unknown Severian
> 
> Roy wrote:
> >Sure, it's a reasonable conclusion; it's the time-walking part that bothers
> >me. If Sev1 doesn't exist in Sev2's universe, as you put it, what is the
> >relevance of his stipulated ability to walk in time?
> 
> I think the stuff about Sev1 has to be read in the context in which it
> was written, that is, as part of the final words in a tetralogy that
> was intended to make sense by itself, without any fifth volume.
> 
> The relevance of Sev1's time-travel ability, in this context, is that
> it tells us we can expect Sev2 to gain the power to walk in time too,
> as he is following in Sev1's footsteps. And *that* has some major
> implications.
> 
> "I know now the identity of the man called the Head of Day." TCotA, XXXVIII
> 
> Paradoxes notwithstanding, the fact that Severian will one day become
> a magical man called The Head of Day is a pretty huge hint that he is
> going to be successful in bringing the New Sun - something that we
> don't actually know at that point (although we've had some other
> pretty big hints).
> 
> More than that, as I realised on about my third read-through of the
> tetralogy, if the power of time travel makes it possible for Severian
> to be Apu-Punchau, it also makes it possible for him to be another
> long-ago magic man: the Conciliator. Revelation!
> 
> All this is confirmed in UotNS, obviously, but UotNS wasn't written then.
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